The detection of inter-turn stator faults on inverter fed induction motors

This paper presents harmonic analysis of motor current signatures for detection of inter-turn stator faults on an inverter fed induction motor. In-order to reliably detect the fault indicative frequency component, a grid connected induction motor is initially considered to eliminate the complexities introduced by an inverter. Once the harmonics are identified and verified through literature the inverter is introduced. Issues associated with sampling, additional harmonics and variable fundamental frequencies are explored. The contribution of this paper is to determine how reliably the components of the fault are affected by the severity or loading under different operating frequencies.